The Sales Tech Landscape 2017: InsideSales Among AI-Powered Players

Sales consultant Nicolas de Kouchkovsky recently released his updated research on “The Sales Tech Landscape 2017,” and Insidesales.com is mentioned among the most popular AI-powered tools for sales acceleration.  The document offers an overview of sales tools currently available on the market and shows who the major players are in the industry.

The Sales Tech Landscape 2017

The Sales Tech Landscape is already at its its fourth edition and includes 32 categories and over 700 participants. Applications are grouped into five categories, based on their functionality:

Engagement – Covers technologies for engaging with prospects and customers using voice, video, or digital communication, or in person.

Enablement & Productivity – Includes the tools helping front-line personnel be more efficient and effective.

Sales Intelligence – Comprises the solutions and database services providing information and insights on companies and buyers.

Pipeline & Analytics – Contains all the software for managing and instrumenting the sales pipeline and measuring performance.

People – Encompasses all the applications for managing and developing sales personnel, from on-boarding to compensation.

InsideSales is mentioned in the sales tech blueprint in five categories: email tools, sales dialers, lead distribution & call management, multichannel orchestration, and sales gamification.

So Many Sales Solutions, So Little Time

The sales technology industry has expanded and many solutions have been proliferated – often with less than optimal results, shows Nicolas.

“In the early days, it was easy to try and buy applications. I know of a few organizations where individual sales reps could buy the software they wanted and expense it on their credit cards. The rapid development of this industry led to a proliferation of solutions, poorly integrated and often underutilized,” shows Nicolas, in a blog post for SalesHacker.com.

He advises sales leaders to make sure they follow three steps when adding sales technology to their applications stack:

  • Have a clear sales methodology defined and documented. Then, you can harness software to execute.
  • Be clear on why you are buying software. It should be for one of three reasons: automate and scale a process, instrument your processes to optimize them, or experiment and innovate.
  • Define your data model with minutiae. This will become the backbone to align your technology stack.

See the Sales Tech Landscape Study on Sales Hacker.  Or, download the PDF here.

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